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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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http://www.archive.org/details/simmsOObrya 



Vol. II. No. 5. Five cents. 



63?? 

Per Year, Fifty cents 




^ Xittle 3ourne?0 
to tbe Ibomes of 
ameiican Hutbora 



Slmm0 



BY 

Wm. Cullen Bryant 



MAY, 1896 

New York and London : ©♦ Ip, 

putnam'5 Sons * -x- 

New Rochelle, N. Y. The 

Knickerbocker Press. f: 




Co'-.o^^-"^--^ 



^5^ 



Xittle 3ourne?0 -p^ 

SERIES FOR 1896 ""^ / 

Xittle 5ournci26 to tbe Ibomee of 
Bmericau Butbors 

The papers below specified, were, with the 
exception of that contributed by the editor, 
Mr. Hubbard, originally issued by the late 
G. P. Putnam, in 1853, in a series entitled 
Ho7nes of American Authors. It is now 
nearly half a century since this series (which 
won for itself at the time a very noteworthy 
prestige) was brought before the public ; and. 
the present publishers feel that no apology is 
needed in presenting to a new generation of 
American readers papers of such distinctive 
biographical interest and literary value. 

No. I, Emerson, by Geo. W. Curtis, 

2, Bryant, by Caroline M. Kirkland. 

3, Prescott, by Geo. S. Hillard. 

4, Lowell, by Charles F. Briggs. 

5, Simms, by Wm. Cullen Bryant. 

6, Walt "Whitman, by Elbert Hubbard. 

7, Hawthorne, by Geo. Wm. Curtis. 

8, Audubon, by Parke Godwin. 

9, Irving, by H. T. Tuckerman. 

10, Longfellow^ by Geo. Wm. Curtis. 

11, Everett, by Geo. S. Hillard. 

12, Bancroft, by Geo, W. Greene. 

The above papers, which will form the 
series of Little Joui'neys for the year 1896, 
will be issued monthly, beginning January, 
in the same general style as the series of 
1895, at 5octs. a year. Single copies, 5 cts., 
postage paid. 

Entered at the Post Office, New Rochelle, N. Y., 
as second class matter 



Copyright, 1896, by 

G. P. Putnam's sons 

27 A 29 West 23D Street, New York 
24 Bedford Street, Strand, London 

The Knickerbocker Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 



o 



06 Z 



SIMMS 



149 



I/ithe and long as the serpent train, 

Springing and clinging from tree to tree, 
Now darting upward, now down again, 

With a twist and a twirl that are strange to see ; 
Never took serpent a deadlier hold. 

Never the cougar a wilder spring, 
Strangling the oak with the boa's fold, 

Spanning the beech with the condor's wing. 

Yet no foe that we fear to seek, — 

The boy leaps wild to thy rude embrace ; 
Thy bulging arms bear as soft a cheek 

As ever on lover's breast found place ; 
On thy waving train is a playful hold 

Thou slialt never to lighter grasp persuade ; 
While a maiden sits in thy drooping fold, 

And swings and sings in the noonday shade ! 

— The Grape- Vine Swing, 



150 



FOREWORD 

This sketcli, from the pen of Mr. Bry- 
ant, was done **by request." Very pos- 
sibly it was written and disposed of at a 
single sitting. It is straightforward, ex- 
plicit, and to the point, like one of his 
Evening Post editorials. It is manly in 
sentiment, grammatically expressed, con- 
tains no dangerous logic, and can safely 
be recommended for the Young Person. 

Bryant was born in 1794, and at the 
time of this writing was fifty-eight years 
old. Simms was twelve years his junior, 
but his name was among the very first of 
the writers of his time ; while Bryant was 
known only as an editor who had written 
some good verse and some not so good. 
In fact Bryant was a disappointment to 
his friends (as most gifted men are), for 
in Thanatopsis he set a pace that he 
never afterward equalled. And it was 
Greeley who said that he never ceased to 
regret the fact that Bryant did not die at 
twenty, for then the world could have 

I "1 1 



jfoceworD 

marvelled at the things he left unwrit 
and shown the Thanatopsis as a sample 
of the tomes that might have been. 

But we of to-day are thankful for the 
example of that well-rounded life with 
its beautiful old age, frosty but kindly ; 
and I never take down a volume of the 
Library of Poetry and Song without say- 
ing grace. 

We may search in vain in America for 
a school-boy of twelve who does not know 
Bryant, but when I asked a gentlemanly 
and intelligent attendant at the Boston 
Public Library to fetch me any volume 
of prose by Simms, he brought me Sims 
on Gynecology, I gazed at the book with 
lack-lustre eye, and shot just one re- 
proachful glance at the attendant. And 
it was then that that charming little old 
gentleman in the dusty grey suit came 
to me and divining my wants (as he al- 
ways does), told me that no one to speak 
of reads Simms now. Then he led me 
back through a labyrinth of cases, and 
amid a maze of shelves showed me rows 
on rows of books labelled Simms that no 
one ever calls for. "And I remember 
the time when he was as popular as Mr. 
Howells is to-day ! " said the old gentle- 
man. 

152 



jForcworD 

As Nature works incessantly to cover 
the leaves of last year, so does Fate seek 
to hide the fame that yesterday loomed 
large. And although Mr. John Burroughs 
says, " Serene I fold my hands and wait," 
yet for the moment let us lay aside sen- 
timent and admit that Chance plays a 
most important part in keeping alive the 
names of greatness gone. We live in a 
costermonger time, when virtue is not 
its own reward, when innocence is not 
a sufficient shield, and when merit, un- 
puffed, is soon forgot. It is not moth 
and rust, nor the incomparable excel- 
lence of the contemporaneous, that causes 
the old to be brushed into the dust-bin, 
but it is the poppy fumes of forgetful- 
ness. 

But in the interests of Truth let us ad- 
mit that what we call the God of Chance 
is only another name for Law not Under- 
stood. It is so easy to dispose of the 
matter by the canting phrase i' the nose, 
"Merit is sure to win," but before it is 
fact it must be amended thus : " Merit is 
sure to win if well advertised." Good 
books, like good thread, good soap, good 
horse-shoe nails, and good baking pow- 
der, must be properly presented. Truth 
can stand alone, but no book is truth ; 
153 



jforeworD 

it is only an endeavor to express truth, 
and will die the death if not advertised 
by its enemies or its loving friends. 

Six men in New England have made a 
lasting-place for themselves in American 
Letters. Their work was good, but this 
alone (with a single exception) would not 
have floated it. It was necessary that 
they should stand by each other, and 
they did. There was an unwritten agree- 
m.ent that Boston and Cambridge should 
protect their own. This was done through 
the cult of a great University, through 
the Lyceum, and through the magazines 
controlled by publishers that were party 
to the alliance. An occasional growl in 
the way of a Fable for Critics^ only ad- 
vertised all hands. And now from time 
to time elegant reprints of the Vv^orks of 
these six men are gotten out by New 
York and Boston publishers, and maga- 
zines, societies, clubs, and descendants 
keep the work fresh before the people. 

The books of J. G. Holland, Margaret 
Fuller, Geo. S. Hillard, Chas. F. Briggs, 
Henry T. Tuckerman, and others have 
sunk by their own weight, while the 
graceful and superficial writings of Willis 
may be said to have drifted into oblivion 
because of their lack of weight. The 
154 



work was good, but not good enough, 
yet six of the old guard live, and I am 
glad that this is so. And all the point I 
would now make is that when Mr. Simms 
moved from Massachusetts to South 
Carolina he courted Oblivion and — won 
her. 

But genius is constantly being "dis- 
covered." See what Fitzgerald did for 
Omar Khayyam, whose Rubaiyat is now 
published in America by seventeen firms ; 
behold how Boyesen discovered Ibsen 
and Howells sweeping the horizon with 
his telescope on the lookout for a genius, 
spied Tolstoy and cried *' There she 
blows!" remember how Thoreau intro- 
duced Ruskin to America and Emerson 
brought out Carlyle. And so I await 
the advent of some Columbus on the Sea 
of Letters who shall give us back that 
lost Atalantis, William Gilmore Simms, 
who Mr. Bryant says wrote fifty volumes 
— poems, plays, novels, histories, and 
biographies. Some of these fifty books 
may be crude and gushing, but others 
there be that show a splendid insight 
into truth, a delicate sensibility, a broad 
and generous sympathy, and withal the 
great and tender heart of a noble man. 

E. H. 
155 



SIMMS. 



BY WII^WAM CUI^IvEN BRYANT.* 



THE country residence of William 
Gilmore Simms is on tlie planta- 
tion of his father-in-law, Mr. 
Roach, in Barnwell District, South Caro- 
lina, near Midway, a railway station at 
just half the distance between Charleston 
and Augusta. Here he passes half the 
year, the most agreeable half in that 
climate, — its pleasant winter, and por- 
tions of its spring and autumn — in a 
thinly settled country divided into large 
plantations, principally yielding cotton, 
with smaller fields of maize, sweet pota- 

* Written in 1853 for Putnam's Homes of Ameri- 
can Authors. 



Simms 

toes, pea-nuts, and other productions of 
the region, to which sugar-cane has lately 
been added. 

Forests of oak, and of the majestic 
long-leaved pine, surround the dwelling, 
interspersed with broad openings, and 
stretch far away on all sides. In the 
edge of one of these are the habitations 
of the negroes by whom the plantation 
is cultivated, who are indulgently treated 
and lead an easy life. The bridle-roads 
through these noble forests, over the 
hard white sand, from which rise the 
lofty stems of the pines, are very beau- 
tiful. Sometimes they wind by the bor- 
ders of swamps, green in mid-winter 
with the holly, the red bay, and other 
trees that wear their leaves throughout 
the year, among which the yellow jessa- 
mine twines itself and forms dense ar- 
bors, perfuming the air in March to a 
great distance with the delicate odor of 
its blossoms. In the midst of these 
swamps rises the tall Virginia cypress, 
with its roots in the dark water, the sum- 
158 



Simms 

mer haunt of the alligator, who sleeps 
away the winter in holes made under the 
bank. Mr. Simms, both in his poetry 
and prose, has made large and striking 
use of the imagery supplied by the pecu- 
liar scenery of this region. 

The house is a spacious country dwell- 
ing, without any pretensions to archi-^ 
tectural elegance, comfortable for the 
climate, though built without that at- 
tention to what a South Carolinian would 
call the unwholesome exclusion of the 
outer air which is thought necessary in 
these colder latitudes. Around it are 
scattered a number of smaller buildings 
of brick, and a little further stand rows 
and clumps of evergreens — the water- 
oak, with its glistening light-colored 
foliage, the live-oak, with darker leaves, 
and the Carolina bird-cherry, one of the 
most beautiful trees of the South, bloom- 
ing before the winter is past, and mur- 
muring with multitudes of bees. In one 
of the lower rooms of this dwelling, in 
the midst of a well-chosen library, many 
159 



Slmms 

of the books which comprise the numer- 
ous catalogue of Mr. Simms' works were 
written. 

Mr. Simms was bom April 17, 1806, 
in the State of South Carolina. It was 
at first intended that he should study 
medicine, but his inclinations having led 
him to the law, he devoted himself to 
the study of that profession. His liter- 
ary habits are very uniform. His work- 
ing hours usually commence in the 
morning, and last till two or three in the 
afternoon, after which he indulges in 
out-door recreations, in reading, or so- 
ciety. If friends or visitors break into 
his hours of morning labor, which he 
does not often permit, he usually re- 
deems the lost time at night, after the 
guests have retired. He is a late sitter, 
and consequently a late riser. Land- 
scape gardening is one of his favorite 
pastimes, and the grounds adjoining his 
residence afford agreeable evidence of 
his good taste. 

Mr. Simms is a man of athletic make. 
160 



Simms 

A full muscular development, and a 
fresh complexion, give token of vigorous 
health, which however is not without its 
interruptions ; for although not indis- 
posed to physical exertion, the inclina- 
tion to mental activity in the form of 
literary occupation, predominates with 
him over every other taste and pursuit. 

His manners, like the expression of 
his countenance, are singularly frank and 
ingenuous, his temper generous and sin- 
cere, his domestic affections strong, his 
friendships faithful and lasting, and his 
life blameless. No man ever wore his 
character more in the general sight of 
men than he, or had ever less occasion to 
do otherwise. The activity of mind of 
which I have spoken, is as apparent in 
his conversation as in his writings. He 
is fond of discussion, likes to pursue an 
argument to its final retreat, and is not 
unwilling to complete disquisition which 
others, in their ordinary discourse, would 
leave in outline. He has travelled exten- 
sively, mingling freely with all classes, 
i6i 



Simms 

and has accumulated an apparently ex- 
haustless fund of anecdotes and incidents, 
illustrative of life and manners. These 
he relates, with great zest and inimitable 
humor, reproducing to perfection the pe- 
culiar dialect and tones of the various 
characters introduced, whether sand-lap- 
per, backwoodsman, half-breed, or negro. 
His literary character has this peculiar- 
ity which I may call remarkable, that 
writing as he does with very great rapid- 
ity, and paying little regard to the objec- 
tions brought by others against what he 
writes, he has gone on improving upon 
himself. His first attempts in poetry 
were crude and j ejune. Ashe proceeded, 
he left them immeasurably behind, in 
command of materials and power of exe- 
cution, till in his beautiful poem of Ata- 
lantiSy the finest, I think, he has written, 
his faciilties seem to have nearly reached 
their maturity in this department. One 
of his pieces, entitled The Edge of the 
Swamp, may be quoted here not only as 
a specimen of his descriptive verse, but 
162 



Simms 

as an illustration of the peculiar source 
from which his imagery is derived : 

'T is a wild spot and hath a gloomy look ; 
The bird sings never merrily in the trees, 
And the young leaves seem blighted. A rank 

growth 
Spreads poisonously round, with power to taint 
With blistering dews the thoughtless hand that 

dares 
To penetrate the covert. Cypresses 
Crowd on the dank, wet earth ; and, stretched at 

length. 
The cayman — a fit dweller in such home- 
Slumbers, half buried in the sedgy grass. 
Beside the gfreen ooze where he shelters him, 
A whooping crane erects his skeleton form, 
And shrieks in flight. Two summer ducks 

aroused 
To apprehension, as they hear his cry. 
Dash up from the lagoon, with marvellous haste, 
Following his guidance. Meetly taught by these, 
And startled at our rapid, near approach. 
The steel-jawed monster, from his grassy bed. 
Crawls slowly to his slimy, green abode. 
Which straight receives him. You behold him 

now, 
His ridgy back uprising as he speeds, 
In silence, to the centre of the stream. 
Whence his head peers alone. A butterfly 
163 



Slmms 

That, travelling all the day, has counted climes 
Only by flowers, to rest himself awhile, 
I^ights on the monster's brow. The surly mute 
Straightway goes down, so suddenly, that he, 
The dandy of the summer flowers and woods. 
Dips his light wings, and spoils his golden coat, 
With the rank water of that turbid pond. 
Wondering and vexed, the plumed citizen 
Flies with an hurried eflfort, to the shore. 
Seeking his kindred flowers : — but seeks in 

vain — 
Nothing of genial growth may there be seen, 
Nothing of beautiful ! Wild, ragged trees, 
That look like felon spectres, fetid shrubs, 
That taint the gloomy atmosphere — dusk shades, 
That gather, half a cloud, and half a fiend 
In aspect, lurking on the swamp's wild edge- 
Gloom with their sternness and forbidding 

frowns 
The general prospect. The sad butterfly, 
Waving his lackered wings, darts quickly on, 
And, by his free flight, counsels us to speed 
For better lodgings, and a scene more sweet 
Than these drear borders offer us to-night. 

Mr. Simms' prose writings show a simi- 
lar process of gradual improvement, 
though in them the change is less 
marked, owing to his having appeared 
164 



Simms 

before the public as a novelist at a riper 
period of his literary life. In all that he 
has written his excellences are unbor- 
rowed ; their merits are the development 
of original native germs, without any 
apparent aid from models. His thoughts, 
his diction, his arrangement are his own : 
he reminds you of no other author ; even ^~ 

in the lesser graces of literar}^ execution, 
he combines languages after no pattern 
set by other authors, however beautiful. 

His novels have a wide circulation, and 
are admired for the rapidity and fervor 
of the narrative, their picturesque de- 
scriptions, the energy with which they 
express the stronger emotions, and the 
force with which they portray local man- 
ners. His critical writings, which have 
appeared in the Southern periodicals and 
are quite numerous, are less known. 
They often, no doubt, have in them those 
imperfections which belong to rapid com- 
position, but I must be allowed to single 
out from among them one example of 
great excellence, his analysis and esti- 
165 



Stmms 

mate of the literary character of Cooper, 
a critical essay of great depth and dis- 
crimination, to which I am not sure that 
anything hitherto written on the same 
subject is fully equal. He published his 
Lyrics, in 1825, eighteen years ago ; his 
longest and best poem, Atalantis, a Story 
of the Sea, in 1832 ; Martin Faber, Guy 
Rivers, Yemasee, Partisan, Mellichampe, 
and many others, in succession. The en- 
tire series of his works, poetry and prose, 
comprises about fifty volumes. 



166 



THE COMPLETE WORKS OF 

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER 

MOHAWK EDITION 

To be completed in 32 volumes, large 
T2mo, handsomely printed, with illustrations, 
and substantially bound. 

The Mohawk Edition will range in ap- 
pearance wdth the Hudson Edition of Irving's 
Works, and the volumes will be sold either 
separately or in sets. Broken sets can, there- 
fore, always be made good. 

Price, per Volume, $1.25. 

The Mohawk Edition will comprise the 
complete works as follows : 

Section I. Comprises ; Section IL Comprises: 



The Pilot 
Red Rover 
Wing and Wing 
The Water-Witch 
The Two Admirals 
.The Sea-Lions 



The Deerslayer 
Last of the Mohicans 
The Pathfinder 
The Pioneers 
The Prairie 
.The Spy 

Precaution Afloat and Ashore 

Lionel Lincoln Wept of Wish-ton-Wish 

Homeward Bound The Bravo 

Home as Found The Hidenmauer 

Mercedes of Castile The Headsman 

The Redskins The Monikins 

The Chainbearer Miles Wallingford 

Satanstoe Jack Tier 

The Crater Oak Openings 

Wyandotte The Ways of the Hour 

The two sections in brackets are now ready. 
Other sections will follow at brief inter- 
vals, until the set is completed. 



O. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London 



A Periodica! of Protest. 



• • • Would to God jny name were 
Not so terrible to the enemy as it is I 

Henry VIII. 



Printed Every Little While for 
the Society of The Philistines 
and Publishedby Them Monthly. 
Subscription, One Dollar Yearly; 
Single Copies lO cents. 

The Philistine and Little Journeys, one 
year, One Dollar. 



"/if is very handsome andvery sassy." 

— Boston Herald. 

*It is deliciously imj>udent." 

— Rochester Herald, 

*^It offers a most promising sign." 

— New York Tribune, 



The Philistine is calculated to lay the dust of con- 
vention and drive out the miasma of degeneracy, and 
-while assailing the old gods may, in due time, rear 
new ones to the delight of the healthy populace. 

THE PHILISTINE, 
East Aurora, Nev/ York. 



rM HE Roy croft Printing Shop 
Hi announces the publication 
<^j oi an exquisite edition of 
the Song of Songs: which is 
Solomon's; being a Reprint of 
the text together with a Study by 
Mr. Elbert Hubbard ; wherein a 
most peculiar and pleasant effect 
is wrought by casting the Song 
into dramatic form. 

|j?^The Study is sincere, but not serious, and 
^^has been declared by several Learned Per- 
il^ sons, to whom the proofsheets have been 
^?^submitted, to be a Work of Art. The Volume 
^Nis thought a seemly and precious gift from 
|p any Wife to any Husband. 

)HE book is printed by hand, with rubric- 
.ated initials and title page, after the Ve- 
jnetian, on Ruisdael handmade paper. 
The type was cast to the order of the Roy- 
croft Shop, and is cut after one of the 
earliest Roman faces. It is probable that no 
more beautiful type for book printing was ever 
made, and, for reasons known to lovers of books, 
this publication will mark an era in the art of 
printing in America. 

Only six hundred copies, 
.bound in flexible Japan 
vellum, have been made, 
and will be offered for 
sale at two dollars each, net. There are 
also twelve copies printed on Japan vel- 
lum throughout, which have all been sold 
at five dollars each. Every copy is num- 
bered and signed by Mr. Hubbard. 

THE ROYCROFT PRINTING SHOP, 
East Aurora, New York. 




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